You might recognise super fund-raiser Gill Punt – she’s been in the press a lot recently and was even interviewed by Lorraine, so you’d be forgiven for thinking she courts the limelight, but you’d be wrong
Gill’s media shenanigans are a means to an end allowing her to raise her profile and in turn boost her charity fund-raising. When we spoke, Gill was fresh from completing the Polar Night Marathon in Norway and was as focused as ever on fund-raising for Cancer Research UK. Gill has raised just shy of £2million for the charity and is hoping to break through that mark by running the London Marathon in May.
Remarkably Gill doesn’t enjoy running which makes her achievements even more incredible. She’s been running and raising funds for more than 20 years and says she won’t stop until we live in a world without cancer. The fund-raising was prompted by her father’s devastating terminal diagnosis of bile duct cancer. Although Gill played hockey and cricket to a high level, she wasn’t a runner and thought it would amuse her father to see her running the London Marathon, so she did, and her fund-raising crusade was born.
POLAR BEAR
To complicate matters, Gill runs dressed in a polar bear outfit which her pupils at South Bromsgrove School have named Paula as it sounds a bit like polar and in honour of distance running royalty Paula Radcliffe. Cancer Research organises a winter run series where the support staff and volunteers dress as polar bears, huskies and penguins which is where the idea came from. The first time Gill donned the costume was London 2016 and she recalls: “As fun as it was, it was so hot. I never really thought I’d do it again.” Yet here we are.
It’s thanks to the polar bear outfit that Gill became a race ambassador for the Polar Night Marathon in Norway earlier in the year raising an impressive £22,000. She says: “The organisers fully embraced the idea and threw publicity behind it. I was on Norwegian TV and in the press.” It was a bit unnerving at times. At one point the temperature dropped to -23 degrees and Gill could hear arctic wolves howling which she says focused her!
CHEERS AND TEARS
Gill remembers running out of the wilderness and into hamlets where children were standing in the streets in temperatures of -16 waving drawings of polar bears. There were tears inside the costume not least because Gill knew that a week later to the day, she’d be sat in the chapel at Bromsgrove School, remembering one of her dear friends, Lesley, who had died from cancer. Gill says: “There is genuinely not a family in this country or any country that hasn’t been touched by cancer. The number of cases is rising, so it has never been more urgent to beat cancer.”
Gill’s training is consistent building to an intense 17-week schedule leading up to a marathon. She completed her very first marathon in London all those years ago with minimal training to which she said, ‘never again’. She says you have to keep the mileage up and get those long runs in.
SIX-HITTER
As head of sport at South Bromsgrove School as well as a coach at Bromsgrove School, Gill fits her runs around the day job by completing quick European runs or runs that fall in the school holidays. That said, she has managed to complete all six major marathons in the world – Tokyo, Boston, London, Berlin, Chicago and New York – and has been awarded the Six Star World Marathon Major medal. More people have reached the top of Everest than have been awarded this accolade. So, what’s next?
Gill would like to have a crack at the infamous Marathon de Sable in Morocco which is approximately the distance of six regular marathons over seven days. She says: “Maybe when I retire.”